Slowly, incrementally, in ways not always showing up on a scoreboard, the UTEP defense has been improving.

The Miners were so abysmal early it would have been hard not to get better, but at times in the past month they've approached competence.

REPORTER

Bret Bloomquist

On a lovely Saturday night, all that improvement finally came together in a resounding way. Playing fast and with confidence, UTEP stuffed Florida International 33-10 for their second victory of the year and the first for coach Sean Kugler and this team in the Sun Bowl.

"I loved the energy the team played with," Kugler said. "They played with passion and that's not easy to do when you're 1-8. We gang tackled, I didn't see many missed tackles, the coverage was outstanding. Even on long balls they were stride for stride."

Defensive end James Davidson said, "We played with energy and enthusiasm. It's wonderful. It's nice when everything clicks and goes your way."

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Davidson teamed with Horace Miller for a safety in the third quarter.

To be certain, Florida International, who came in next-to-last in the FBS in scoring and total offense, was a low bar - the 10 points was just .1 below their season average - but that wasn't UTEP's problem and it became FIU's. The Panthers didn't crest 100 yards until the last play of the third quarter, when they hit 106, and their final total of 200 was the Miners' best showing of the year.

Offensively, UTEP was as conservative as their dominant defense and dominant offensive line allowed them to be, mixing in six Mack Leftwich passes with 53 runs, including eight from former starting quarterback Blaire Sullivan out of the Wildcat that went for 104 yards.

"This was a program win: running the ball, playing good defense," Leftwich said.

Nathan Jeffery added 130 yards on the season-high 25 carries that was envisioned for him before this injury-plagued season, and an offensive line that was crushed last week by North Texas paved the way for 327 rushing yards (the most in a conference game in 20 yards) and zero sacks.

"That was fun for the offensive line," Kugler said. "I wanted to show trust in those guys. They struggled last week, everyone knew it, I challenged them.

"I love it when guys respond. You're going to get whipped sometimes, it's how you respond."

UTEP scored the first 10 points, answered an FIU touchdown with one of their own on a fourth-and-goal, 1-yard run from Jeffery with 38 seconds left in the first half, then dominated the second half.

Speaking of responding, Sullivan was huge, busting off 56 yards on his first carry, and he was the team's leading rusher until Jeffery broke a 50-yard touchdown run to close the scoring with 7:05 remaining.

"It was tough at the start, getting pulled off the starting quarterback job, but I have great teammates and I knew maybe I could help the team out in a different way," Sullivan said. "I'm happy to do that."

"Blaire's too good of an athlete not to be on the field," Kugler said. "He can play a lot of positions for us. I've got a lot of respect for Blaire. A lot of guys would sulk and whine, he came out and competed."

Leftwich, meanwhile, was 3-of-7 passing for 80 yards, marking the fewest passes by UTEP since going 0-for-3 in a 1983 victory over Weber State.

Running "is what was working, I'd much rather have a win than throw the ball 40 times," he said. "This is pretty awesome. Last week wasn't too fun, this week is 10 times better, 100 times better."

Leftwich's last past was the game-clincher, a 64-yard strike to Jordan Leslie late in the third quarter that gave the Miners a 26-7 lead. Given the way the Miner defense was playing, that was plenty.

"It's a big help knowing the defense can bail you out," Leftwich said. "A couple of times we didn't get a first down when we needed one, but they did a great job getting stops."

The defense agreed.

"Everybody bought in," Miller said. "A win is always great, it's the reason why I love this game: to win. The key was stopping the run (FIU had 95 rushing yards), we knew they would try to pound it, pound it, and everybody did a good job filling gaps."

"After win like this there's not to much to say," Davidson said. "Everybody is pretty happy."